Missionaries

Jerusalem, Judea and the ends of the earthGoodwood Baptist Church has the joy of partnering with several ‘full-time’ national and overseas missionaries in the work of the gospel:

Hans-Walter and Sabine Ritter

During her studies at UCT, Sabine became a believer and joined Goodwood Baptist church. She married Hans in Germany and they both prepared to serve as professionals in China. This is why they joined OMF International in 1996, an organization which God has called to reach out to South East Asians. Due to medical reasons they could not go to Asia long-term, but were instead asked to serve as mobilizers in Germany, in order to support those who can go. They were then called to Singapore for one year to deputize at the OMF International center, before returning to take over the leadership of OMF Germany. A few years later, God, quite unexpectedly sent them on a 2,5 year assignment to Africa in order to set up a team to support African churches in welcoming the many Chinese that are moving to this continent. In 2015, they were asked to join the executive leadership team of OMF International, where they are currently responsible for OMF centers in Europe & Africa. Since Hans and Sabine are now based in a city in Germany, they are also able to welcome and reach out to many international students in their home. This is a great source of joy to them because they love reading the Bible with people from different cultural backgrounds – and also enjoy trying their various kinds of foods J. Hans and Sabine feel blessed with their three precious children and enjoy hiking and kayaking together as a family.

Anselmo Vilanculo

Anselmo and his wife, Charlene live in Barberton with their 3 sons Antonio, Gabriel and Jose Miguel. There he serves as the Director of the Mobile School of Theology (MOST). He was born and raised in Mozambique where he was saved and began working in the ministry. He later moved to South Africa where he completed his studies in Theology. At the time also providing pastoral oversight at First Portuguese Baptist church in Cape Town. He later felt called back to be a missionary to the people of Mozambique and Joined MOST.

MOST is a faith-based Kingdom-minded ministry that came about as a result of ministry experiences involving the Portuguese-speaking community in the Cape, Angola and Mozambique from the year 2000. During this time, the need for a more viable and practical model for pastoral training became clear. The vehicle was to be a Mobile School of Theology – MOST. The vision of MOST is to train pastors and church leaders who have not had an opportunity to receive formal theological training.

The mission of MOST is to make theological education accessible to pastors, the laity and those in different spheres of Christian ministry in local communities, in order to afford them an opportunity to receive basic theological education, in order to enable them to fulfill God’s call in their lives fully and help them to impact their communities with the power of the Gospel.

Thembelani Maqhajana

Thembelani is married to Vathiswa and they have two kids, Simthandile & Sinovuyo Joy. He was born in Crossroad and his parents moved to Khayelitsha in 1991. He was a young boy who grew up in church and got saved at an early age. He became a youth leader at a later stage and grew up loving the Lord serving Him with all of his heart, later Thembelani sensed the call.

He began his studies at Bible Institute Eastern Cape (BIEC), in P.E but couldn’t finish there because He was far from home and there were some financial challenges. Rather he finished at Evangelical Bible College that was in Association with SATS at that time and then went to Cape Town Baptist Seminary to do Baptist Principles with Honours.

In 2008 there was a turnaround in his faith when he got convicted of the doctrines of grace and subscribed to the authority of scripture, these things were often a problem in the township Baptist churches. It was a long struggle for him to remain there after He became reformed stating “I felt like an orphan in the Baptist church and no one was close to me”.

He resolved to plant a reformed Baptist Church in the Township with another Pastor who had had the same experience. After couple of meetings they decided to plant a Bible centered church where there is no Baptist church at all. Bardale area in Mfuleni was identified and Grace Baptist church was planted. The church held its first service in Bardale Primary School on the 05th March 2017.

The mission of Grace Baptist Church is to glorify God by:

Making disciples and fulfilling the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

Proclaim the Word faithfully (2 Tim 4:2).

Maintenance of unity of all believers (John 13:34).

Pursue social justice (Psalm 82:3).

The vision is to be a gospel centered church, to build strong families, to advance the kingdom of God by reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ